Monday, March 13, 2017

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) speaks on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 6, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Image source: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) claimed Friday that Muhammad Ali Jr., the son of the late great boxing legend Muhamamd Ali, was “detained” by Department of Homeland Security officials while boarding a flight from Washington, D.C., to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“On way home on DOMESTIC FLIGHT Muhammad Ali Jr. detained AGAIN by @DHSgov. Religiously profiling son of ‘The Greatest’ will not make us safe,” the congresswoman tweeted to her more than 350,000 followers.

The tweet came the same week as President Donald Trump and his administration revealed a revised executive order banning travel from six countries in the Middle East: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The previous order included the same countries plus Iraq.

The first executive order was held up in the federal court system after two states sued the administration, saying it was unconstitutional. Four states have so far filed suit against Trump’s revised travel ban, according to the Hill.

But the former DNC chairwoman’s “religious profiling” narrative fell apart just hours after her incendiary claim when Ali’s hometown newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, reported that the TSA denied ever having detained the boxing star’s son.

“The TSA does not have the authority to detain passengers, and that did not happen,” a TSA spokesman told the Courier-Journal. “In the security world, ‘detain’ means to take into custody. … We don’t do that. Law enforcement does.”

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority further said that Ali was never arrested and that airport police were never even contacted.

Chris Mancini, Ali’s lawyer, confirmed that Ali was delayed for about 20 minutes so that DHS officials could verify his identity.

According to the Courier-Journal:

Mancini said Homeland Security officials kept Ali Jr. on the phone for about 20 minutes while a line formed behind them at the check-in counter. Eventually, Ali Jr. voluntarily gave his passport to the ticket agent, who read the passport number over the phone. Only then was Ali Jr. cleared. No explanation was given for the delay.

Ali, Jr., and his mother Camacho Ali, both Muslims, were detained Feb. 7 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport upon returning from Montego Bay, Jamaica, where the two gave a speech to mark Black History Month. Ali was reportedly held for nearly two hours while being questioned by immigration authorities.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not comment specifically on that incident, citing privacy restrictions.

Mancini blamed the Feb. 7 incident on Trump’s first travel ban, telling the Courier-Journal, “To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States.” Trump signed the initial travel ban Jan. 27.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.